As if there weren't already enough overnight line stories, I can offer you nothing but more today.
This past weekend was another fun demonstration of teamwork at its best. I'm still not loving lining up on King Street however separating out the volunteers usually means that we are amongst friends. We're happy to look out for each other's things take turns stepping away from line, even keeping each other nourished.
We joked that the TIFF diet began that day, surely it had nothing to do with the brownies courtesy of Adam, the ice cream I bought, Poutine, nor the burgers.
The return of Sachin & Jae (missed you guys) to the line meant stimulating conversation topics such as 'bad movies that you happen to like and have to defend often', Marvel vs DC (Eddy where were you??), how to make a crêpe cake (that's a new one, we must be getting old), and my favorite: 'Encino Man vs Star Trek 2'. These are important things.
Another tradition relived: I was dozing off some time after 3am and awoke momentarily to find Jay sitting in front of me, as if waiting for me to open my eyes, so he could tell me about the relevance of numerology in his life (something I turned him onto in high school and then quickly abandoned my own interest... oddly this has become a bit of a standard conversation for us).
When I was younger I posted about staying up all night in line. Nowadays... let's face it, I'm trying to get in three hours of sleep (even though it wound up only being two.)
Not everyone is psycho like us spending the greater part of the day in the lineup on the street, many show up in the wee hours of the morning. So when I woke at 6am, many friendly faces had passed by and later commented they saw me as they went by, but didn't say hello as I was sleeping. This is why so many of my TIFF friends are my closest friends, they have seen me at my worst a.k.a. slumped over drooling with hair stuck to my face.
I also woke to find coffee waiting for me (thanks Rosie), and I had the foresight to pick up Nutella croissants the previous night so I'd have some breakfast to share.
I learned that during my sleep, someone had arrived with a large box of McDonald's burgers. Tremendously kind gesture? Yes. Unheard of from the wonderful volunteers and other patrons of TIFF? No (that is how awesome we can be to friends and strangers alike!)
Then it was time to get our tickets, a particularly tense hour as we counted down the minutes to the box office opening, the scary moment of truth to see if our picks would be available, and of course, the inevitable site crash/issues that the box office encounters almost every year due to the high demands on the site (I get that there are technological limitations, and that TIFF is a non-profit, etc etc... but it'll always be nerve wracking)
After that... the crash. It's Sunday morning by that point but part of your brain still thinks it's Saturday, you want to sleep, but not too much, lest you not sleep at all Sunday night and the vicious cycle continues. I was in a hazy state, in and out of consciousness until Monday. By then I was pretty confused about what day it was, but at least I was a functioning human being again.
Many of us who line up are not just getting tickets for ourselves, we'll help a close friend or two out. So Monday is usually the day when I get my huge stack of tickets sorted out. Despite the line-up being over, the teamwork doesn't end there.
Now that we have our first round of tickets, it's time to figure out how to use the vouchers we didn't exchange, or even whether to exchange the tickets we do have! Around this time the texts start to fly... "are you going to the box office?" "Did you hear The Lobster is back on sale?" (No, despite the hype, The Lobster still hasn't made it onto my list) "I know someone who's going to the box office now, would you like me to ask them to grab a ticket?" etc etc.
This type of box office coordination will extend through the festival amongst my friends, as well as the "I can hold a spot for you in the rush line" offers. Knowing that my network of savvy TIFF-goers abound and that I will soon get a chance to hang out with all of them (even if our idea of "hanging out" is a little different from the fest of the world) is what keeps me hyped and coming back to TIFF year after year.
Then it was time to get our tickets, a particularly tense hour as we counted down the minutes to the box office opening, the scary moment of truth to see if our picks would be available, and of course, the inevitable site crash/issues that the box office encounters almost every year due to the high demands on the site (I get that there are technological limitations, and that TIFF is a non-profit, etc etc... but it'll always be nerve wracking)
After that... the crash. It's Sunday morning by that point but part of your brain still thinks it's Saturday, you want to sleep, but not too much, lest you not sleep at all Sunday night and the vicious cycle continues. I was in a hazy state, in and out of consciousness until Monday. By then I was pretty confused about what day it was, but at least I was a functioning human being again.
Many of us who line up are not just getting tickets for ourselves, we'll help a close friend or two out. So Monday is usually the day when I get my huge stack of tickets sorted out. Despite the line-up being over, the teamwork doesn't end there.
Now that we have our first round of tickets, it's time to figure out how to use the vouchers we didn't exchange, or even whether to exchange the tickets we do have! Around this time the texts start to fly... "are you going to the box office?" "Did you hear The Lobster is back on sale?" (No, despite the hype, The Lobster still hasn't made it onto my list) "I know someone who's going to the box office now, would you like me to ask them to grab a ticket?" etc etc.
This type of box office coordination will extend through the festival amongst my friends, as well as the "I can hold a spot for you in the rush line" offers. Knowing that my network of savvy TIFF-goers abound and that I will soon get a chance to hang out with all of them (even if our idea of "hanging out" is a little different from the fest of the world) is what keeps me hyped and coming back to TIFF year after year.
One more sleep! #TIFFmaseve!
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